Israel 2017

Gal Weinstein, who represented Israel at the 2002 Sao Paulo Biennial, presents “Sun Stand Still”.

Curated by Tami Katz – Freiman, the exhibition  is a multi-site specific installation, whose every part has been created by the artist in the past decade, depicting the incredibile fascination the artist has in stopping time, and its power to construct and deconstruct relating on the progress and devastation.

The project spreads over the pavilion’s three levels, with an extension in the courtyard, creating a narrative that suggests a melancholic and poetic allegory of the Israeli story – one vacillating between miraculous acts and moments of enlightenment and between neglect and destruction. The divine miracle in
the Ayalon Valley is related here to the Zionist project of conquering a seemingly barren wilderness, alongside expressions of technological progress and agriculture. However, it can also be interpreted as a post-apocalyptic vision, revealing the cost of hubris in the human enterprise of civilization.